Out of Love--March 17, 2020

Out of Love--March 17, 2020

"The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 'When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.' But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.  So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, 'Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?' The midwives said to Pharaoh, 'Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.' So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong." [Exodus 1:15-20]

These two women are my heroes.  They keep showing me what love looks like--how love summons up courage, how love is willing to take seemingly small gestures for the large purpose of saving life, and how love risks looking foolish for those gestures... and does them anyway.   And in that, these two Bible heroes become the instruments through whom God saves countless lives--they become a part of the answer to the prayers of generations of the enslaved Hebrews.

Shiphrah and Puah are teaching me about how to practice little acts of resurrection... which is just what I need as we enter these days of quarantine and challenge from the threat of an infectious disease.

And here's where I want to start with their story:  these two Hebrew midwives (and how cool is it that their names are remembered, after all these thousands of years?) take small actions--basically just allowing the baby Hebrew boys to be born, rather than following Pharaoh's cruel and fearful decree--but their small actions literally save lives.  They see that the moment in which they live is a time of life and death for a generation, and rather than focusing only on themselves, their well-being, what others think of them, they focus on what will help those who are most vulnerable and act risk of literal death.

The choice to save the lives of the Hebrew boys who were born in their presence rather than to protect their own lives from Pharaoh's possible wrath called for them to be courageous, but also to be calm, wise, and thoughtful. Instead of panicking when they were called to help deliver a baby, or becoming so consumed with anxiety about whether the baby would be a boy or a girl that they were useless for helping others, these two women had clear eyes and focused minds, so that when they were called up on to show up, they could save the lives of all, without any concern at all about their gender.  They knew they could only be useful if they were both brave enough to face the possible consequences of their choices and calm enough to be a help rather than a hindrance.

Shiphrah and Puah are also teaching me more theology than maybe I have ever given them credit for.  You just know that someone said to these women, "God is bigger than Pharaoh--let God save those babies."  And the women did not doubt God--rather, they believed in and trusted God to act... including to act through them.  The text makes it clear that Shiphrah and Puah did what they did precisely because they were aware of what God wanted them to do and because they were confident of God's reality (they had that sense of awe-filled respect that sometimes gets called "fear of God"), not because they doubted that God cared or was involved.  They trusted that God was in the midst of the situation--and it was that very trust that led them to save the lives of the baby boys.  It was NOT that they thought, "Well, God's not stepping up here, so I guess we have to do something." And neither did their faith say, "God is in charge, so let the ones die who are going to die--it all must be God's plan and God's will."  They trusted God's presence, and they knew God's character, and therefore they committed themselves to preserve life.

And last of all as I think about these two women's story, it strikes me that Shiphrah and Puah were willing to risk looking foolish, or incompetent, or silly, for the sake of saving lives.  Their cover story back to Pharaoh makes them look rather inept, doesn't it?  "The Hebrew women are so vigorous that they just push those babies out before we can even get there, and so we can't kill their babies!" sounds utterly nonsensical, and it's a wonder that Pharaoh ever believed such a story (or a testament to the idiocy that comes with absolute power).  But in effect, these women are willing to let the powers that be think they are irrelevant and unnecessary, or that they are foolish and silly for not being on the spot when the babies are being born.  And yet they don't care what Pharaoh thinks, or what anybody else thinks.  They are acting to preserve and save life.  They are responding to God's concern for the most vulnerable.  And therefore it doesn't matter what anyone else on earth thinks or says--it is worth the effort and the cost to their reputations.  That is what love does.  That is what love, fortified by courage and directed by calm wisdom, is able to do in the face of life and death: it rescues the vulnerable from certain death.  It practices resurrection.

I wonder if we might think of ourselves as called to a similar role as Shiphrah and Puah these days.  The interruptions to our daily lives we are all being asked to make call for love, courage, wisdom, and an awareness that God just might be calling us to take small steps in order to preserve the lives of others.  Like the Hebrew midwives, the actions we are called to take in this moment are not necessarily big and drastic--they are basically to refrain from things, to step back, and to hold off.  By canceling events or limiting interactions with strangers, we reduce the likelihood of passing along a virus to those whose immune systems are most at risk.  It looks like doing nothing, but it is a conscious choice in order to potentially save the lives of others.  And we do this, even though it is scary to watch so much of "normal life" get turned sideways.  It's scary to see what this is doing to people's jobs and family life, and it's scary to think we may need to adjust for longer than a couple of weeks.  It's unnerving to see empty streets and darkened buildings.  But we face it with courage because this moment has been handed to us with the possibility that we can be a part of the work of saving life--Shiphrah and Puah's work, in a sense.

We will do it--we will take little steps like washing hands, not hoarding or panicking, letting our schedules and plans be up-ended--because of love for people we haven't met as well as for people we hold dear. And we will do it, not because we doubt God, but exactly because we trust in God--and we believe that God may well be answering the prayers of millions for help and protection in part through us and our willingness to do what we can to prevent the spread of illness.  Don't believe for a moment that bad theology out there that says if you really trusted God you would go about your regular day without any changes because you expect God to save the sick people--that's a load of dingoes' kidneys.  No, Shiphrah and Puah's story tells us that sometimes we are part of the very answer to our own prayers to God--or the prayers of others.  It is their faith that compels them to save the Hebrew babies, and it is our faith that leads us to practice social distancing, to care for neighbors whose names we do not know, and to live with the closures of things around us.  It's not that we trust the experts and government officials and talking heads always to get it right and never make a mistake--it's that we know the God in whom we believe and that this God uses people for the purpose of protecting those who are most vulnerable.

And because of that faith, we can bear to look a little silly, or to risk people thinking we are overpreparing or going overboard when things get shut down and events get cancelled.  We can bear whatever criticism or mocking may come, just like Shiphrah and Puah surely knew that their cover story set them up for being ridicules for being terrible midwives who didn't even show up in time to help deliver the babies.  It's ok.  Love is willing to bear mockery or criticism.  Love is brave enough to take the rolling of eyes and getting made fun of.  When you are clear about what you are doing, and who is it for, you can endure a lot.

And that's maybe what we need to be clearest about right now.  If all the cancellations and closures, all the new terminology like "flattening the curve" or "presumed positive" or "social distancing," and all the disappointments at changed plans, are about us just caving into fear, we will give into despair.  Pharaoh would have won if the enslaved Hebrews and their midwives had made choices ruled by fear.  But that's not what Shiphrah and Puah do: they are acting from the courageous-fueled power of love.  And when you are acting out of love for neighbor, when you are grounded in the character of God, when you are clear that your actions are for the sake of the most vulnerable, you find the strength and resilience to bear with having your world turned upside down.

Today, the way to practice little resurrections will look a lot like these two women, whose small gestures were a part of a big purpose to save and preserve life, no matter what Pharaoh or anybody else thinks.  Today, let us give ourselves to small gestures that can preserve the lives of others because God has called us to love our neighbors as well.

Good Lord, thank you for the witness of faithful heroes like Shiphrah and Puah. As we and countless others call on you to help in this season, let us see how we may be a part of your answer to our prayers.